FORESTRY 



town, the burgesses were to have no power to sell them.^^ The priory purchased from Simon Fitz 

 Wirnart, in 1262, part of the wood of Flitwick.^'' 



In the. year 1285 the Statute of Winchester was passed, whereby all trees, underwood, and hedges 

 within two hundred feet of any highway leading from town to town were to be cleared away, lest 

 they should afford shelter to robbers. In the following year, the authorities of Dunstable Priory 

 complied with these injunctions on their property, with the result that their wood of ' Bocwode,' 

 and their grove at Shortgrave had to be felled." The canons, in 1291, purchased from 

 John de la The the right to an annual delivery to them of eight cart-loads of wood from his wood 

 in ' West Cherlewude.' " 



John de Pabenham the elder, in September, 131 2, obtained licence from the king to inclose 

 and empark his woods at Harrold, Carlton, and Wilden, in the county of Bedford, which are 

 described as being within the metes of the king's forest.^" These three parishes stretch out from the 

 north-west boundary of the county adjoining Northamptonshire to within some five miles of 

 Bedford. The forest district of the south-east of Northamptonshire must at this time have extended 

 its bounds into the adjoining county. 



The Acts by which Henry VIII ' dissolved the monasteries and seized the greater part of the 

 church lands with their timber, and converted them to secular uses, dealt a severe blow to the woods 

 in general.' ^^ 



The new owners and crown tenants of monastic woodlands hastened, for the most part, to 

 realize money by their sale, taking little or no thought for the future. It became necessary to 

 safeguard the crown lands by special legislation, and in 1541 an Act was passed establishing a Court 

 of General Surveyors of the King's Lands. One of these officials was termed the master of the 

 woods, without whose assent no wood sales on such estate could be made.^' Among the Exchequer 

 Accounts of 1 541 and the years immediately following are particulars as to the appointment of 

 commissioners to arrange wood sales on property lately pertaining to the priory of Dunstable in this 

 county. Open proclamation of the sale of the timber or underwood to the highest bidder had to be 

 made on the previous Sunday in the parish church nearest to the wood or coppice. 



In 1543 an Act was passed for the general preservation of woods, apart from those on crown 

 lands, laying down stringent rules as to the leaving at least twelve * standrells ' or store trees to each 

 acre of coppice when felled, and providing for the due fencing of coppices, to prevent injury to the 

 stools by cattle, for so many years after felling.^* This Act was confirmed and strengthened by 

 Elizabeth in 1570.^' An Act at the close of the same reign enacted that if any idle person cut or 

 spoil any wood, underwood, or standing tree, if they could not pay the penalty {6s. 8d. for each 

 offence) of earlier legislation, they were to be whipped ; receivers of wood so cut, knowing it to be 

 so, were to incur like penalties.^ 



During Elizabeth's reign various special commissions were issued to check the waste and spoil 

 of woods in particular cases. A commission was appointed in 1569 to inquire as to woods on the 

 manor of Copple-cum-Keone, parcel of the possessions of the crown.^^ In 1 5 7 1 there were several 

 such commissions for the county : — (i) for the repair of the lodge and palings of Combes Park 

 a/ias the Park-in-the-Hole, in the honour of Ampthill ; (2) of Beckening Park, within the same 

 honour ; (3) concerning the woods on the site of the priory of Newnham ; and (4) another commission 

 respecting Combes Park.^^ 



A special commission was appointed in 1579 to report on the wood sales in all the queen's 

 manors in Bedfordshire.^' 



In 1583 inquiry was made after a like fashion as to the Bedfordshire woods called 'Howe- 

 grove ' and ' Pydlywood ' ; ^ in 1592 a similar inquiry was instituted as to the Ampthill woods ; ^* 

 in 1598, as to the queen's woods of Steppingley, Ampthill, and Moggerhanger ; *^ and in the 

 following year there was a further inquest as to the spoils of her majesty's woods throughout the 

 county.^ 



In a preliminary survey of Bedfordshire, drawn up for the Board of Agriculture in 1794, two 

 short sections are devoted to woodland, and the improvement of timber and underwood.^ From 

 this report it appears that the improvement of woodland had been but little attempted in the county. 

 The woods, or woodland, consisted chiefly of oak timber and any kinds of rude underwood that, by 



" Jntt. Mon. (Luard), iii, 173. " Ibid. 221. 



"Ibid. 335. "Ibid. 371. 



^^ Pat. 6 Edw. II, pt. i, m. 20. " Brown, For. of Engl. (1883), 228. 



" 33 Hen. VIII, cap. 39. " 35 Hen. VIII, cap. 17. 



"33 Eliz. cap. 25, § 17. '" 43 Eliz. cap. 7. 



»' Exch. Spec. Com. Eliz. 334. " Ibid. 335-8. 



« Ibid. 348. '* Ibid. 3.51. " Ibid. 375. 



'" Ibid. 368-9. " Ibid. 370. 



*' Thomas Stone, A General Fiew of the Agric. of the County of Beds. (1794), 33-7. 



2, 145 19 



